


Flight of Fancy

by orphan_account



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-10
Updated: 2010-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin's trapped in dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight of Fancy

"Let me do something!"

Chris was insistent; those birdlike eyes darting wildly around as Justin stared up at him through a surface that was shrinking steadily. Hands waving madly around his head, Chris yelled at the top of his lungs, high and urgent noises that were interrupted by gasps so desolate in sound that Justin couldn't help but feel the emotion that was like a curled fist in its intensity.

Black birds screamed up in the air from his vantage point, which drowned Chris's increasingly hoarse and desperate voice out. The sun was a distant yellow jewel, just as glaring and just as cold. He saw darkness everywhere else except from above but he felt no panic, only a mild curiosity and a strange feeling of surrender that this was ultimately how things were supposed to turn out.

Soon, his field of vision was reduced to a small hole the size of a cup. He saw Chris, eyes angry and scared whenever he happened to glance down, that puckish mouth screaming obscenities, but never making eye contact. He saw teeth bleached white as light and then saw nothing at all.

***

 

"Something's gotta be done, Just. You look bad, man."

"Thanks, Joey. I appreciate the honesty," he replied sarcastically.

He felt trapped here in Chris's hotel room, all four of them eyeing him with such well-meaning concern that he felt almost bad for being so stubborn. Almost.

"Look, it'll pass, whatever it is. It's insomnia or something. Don't worry about it."

"Are you sure about that?" Lance asked, trying to inject some calm as everyone was getting increasingly upset. Chris was pacing back and forth in front of him, his dirty shoes making a gray path on the warm blue tones of the carpet. Joey and Lance sat across from him on two separate chairs, Lance nervously fidgeting, Joey relentlessly tapping his left foot. JC sat on the couch beside him, the most worried of all, a pleading expression on his face.

"Why won't you tell us? Why won't you tell me?" JC asked, a childlike hurt in his voice.

"Jesus Christ, JC, I know you didn't mean it, but don't make this about you," Chris said as he stopped pacing. He then turned to Justin and said, "Look, brat, it's as simple as this. You're obviously tired, you're not getting any sleep, you look so bad that it offends even me." He paused there and attempted a smirk but failed. "You either have to let someone help or get it fixed yourself, but-"

"Either way something has to happen," JC said, his expression becoming keenly desperate.

"For Christ's sake, JC, this isn't cancer. I'm just having trouble sleeping. Don't treat it like it's something terminal."

JC cast his eyes down, suddenly seeming unsure of himself.

"Justin." Chris's voice was authoritative. "Since you won't let us help, get it fixed, whatever the hell it is. Don't get doped up, but find out what it is and get it the fuck fixed."

"Chris, that doesn't help," Lance said.

"He's not helping either," Chris said. "I don't mean to be unsympathetic, J, but we made a pact a long time ago, remember? What affects one affects the other four. You're affecting all four of us now, but you won't let us help. Get it fixed yourself then. We're here when you come to your senses, but since you obviously don't want our help, we'll leave you alone." He approached Justin and bent down to meet Justin's eyes. "This isn't forgotten though. If nothing changes within a couple of weeks, we'll have another talk." Chris smoothed a hand over Justin's shorn hair before he straightened up with finality and said, "I'm going to bed."

That was actually it, and Lance, Joey, and JC left, each leaving a trail of concerned glances and looks behind them, JC most of all. Chris marched out without looking back though. Trying to make a point, Justin thought. Smart bastard. He was quite impressed.

***

 

"Let me do something!"

Chris screamed again but once again, Justin's field of vision kept shrinking. Black birds. Cold sun. Darkness around him at a towering angle as he saw Chris from what seemed like six feet above him, his shirt a bright red with You're a Fu Man! written in bright white letters. Indecipherable words afterwards, spoken slowly and with what seemed like lots of L's.

Justin saw Chris's teeth again, but different from what he remembered. They were now shiny with spit and yellow, wolf-like in appearance and seemingly rabid. It was the last image before the light disappeared.

***

"You finally did something about it."

Lance was beaming with pleasure, his green eyes luminous with relief.

A week had passed, and for Justin things had improved slightly, but it was enough to pacify Chris and the others. All that had improved was that Justin could go to sleep quicker after the dream ended. The dream was like a splinter embedded in his flesh that he learned to live with as much as humanly possible, and the week was enough to achieve some sort of ease with the constant discomfort.

"Yeah, I did," Justin said. The bags under his eyes were receding a little bit, and he felt a bit more energized. The extra half an hour of sleep that he got after the nightmare helped a little bit, and those thirty minutes were getting longer as days went on, or so it seemed to him.

"I thought you were beginning to look a little less offensive," Chris joked. Justin stuck his tongue out at him, which Chris returned.

"You do look better," JC noted with a smile.

"Super, almost," Joey added, with a nod to Justin.

"By day, mild-mannered reporter, by night, super star brat!" Chris said.

"If we weren't in your house, you would be so getting an ass kicking."

Impromptu meetings in Chris's house were always rowdy. Trying to come up with new routines for the tour was really just an excuse to get together, although JC tried to remind them of their meeting's original purpose. He failed, but he was a good sport about it.

"So what was it?" Lance asked, curiosity finally getting the better of him.

"What was what?"

"The dream, infant," Chris said.

"Just me getting buried," Justin replied. "It's freakier than it sounds though, because Chris was there." Justin paused deliberately and looked at Chris, who mock-stabbed himself with a knife through the heart. Justin smiled at him, shaking his head.

"What else was it about?" JC asked in a hushed tone.

"Nothing more than that. Birds in the sky. Chris screaming and yelling. That's pretty much it. I don't know why it's freaked me as much as it does."

"I have a Freud book on dreams," JC offered.

"Nah. Thanks anyway. Nothing would explain the midget over there."

Chris threw one of his throw pillows at him, which Justin kept close to him for the rest of the night. He fell asleep on it in the end of the night.

***

 

"Let me do something!"

Justin stretched out his hand and realized how weak he felt, but Chris didn't see him and kept screaming frantically above him. The sun was a flawless golden orb above him, and the birds were perched on a tree, still making an awful racket, but they were still. They seemed to be waiting.

What obscured his vision was as black as the birds' beaks, which had a dark, dull sheen.

***

 

"You can do something, hell, anything!"

It was Chris's time to record his part for a charity single. Joey and Lance had already recorded their parts and went on to Toronto to shoot a few scenes for their new movie, which left Justin with JC and Chris. The sound engineer wanted a break though and Justin went with him to tell him how he wanted the song mixed, but the engineer's eyes took on a glaze that Justin had seen far too often. It was the 'pop star has an idea' look that he resented deeply, but most unfortunately too familiar with. He went back into the building a little angry, but then got distracted by JC, who rarely raised his voice.

Chris and JC were standing in the mixing booth, unable to see Justin on the other side.

"For fuck's sake, keep your voice down. Justin's a grown man, JC. If he wants a psychologist, he can call for a session. Besides, what the hell makes you think he'd open up to me anyway?"

"I just know. He'll open up to you."

"Like what he does with you?"

There was a long silence before JC answered.

"He'll talk to you, Chris. I know it."

"What makes you so sure?"

"He likes you. He looks up to you."

"I like him too."

"He likes you best."

"He does?"

"He always has."

"Why wasn't I aware of this?"

"Cause you're stupid."

"So if he likes me best, what are you?"

"A dorky, older friend."

Something changed in JC's tone then, something Justin couldn't quite pinpoint, but he felt saddened by it, which was echoed by Chris's,

"Sorry man."

Justin walked away quietly.

***

 

The birds were swarming in circles above him. The sun was nothing but a tiny prick point of light. He was shallower this time around, the angles of shadows not quite as steep. Chris was clearer, but he was still frantically yelling and screaming.

"Justin, wake up."

He started to reach with his hand up to Chris, trying to speak but nothing came out, just a wheeze of air, a hint of syllable.

"Justin, wake up."

Why didn't Chris ever look at him? I'm down here, he thought.

"Justin, get the fuck up!"

Consciousness came as brutally as a gunshot. Justin gasped and saw Chris, his dark eyes filled with concern. His living room. His house. Justin felt his nerves loosen immediately when he recognized his surroundings. Memory and sense began to seep back, filling in details lost over sleep. Chris. Movie night, with subtitles. Popcorn and butter getting increasingly stale.

"Had the dream."

"No kidding."

Chris snaked an arm around Justin's shoulders, briskly rubbing Justin's upper arm.

"You're all goosebumpy," Chris said, obviously concerned. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Not particularly."

"Fine. I'll talk then." Chris continued rubbing his arm, which Justin leaned into unconsciously. He burrowed his head in the crook of Chris's shoulder, not noticing Chris's shrug-like movements.

"You know, it was your idea to rent a foreign movie. I told you, not everything out of Asia has Jet Li, Jackie Chan or _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon_. If you had stayed awake, you might have noticed that this movie doesn't have that."

"Dunno why I took that anyway. Thought it had a cool title."

"_The Scent of Green Papaya_ is a cool title?" He could hear the smirk in Chris's voice.

"It sounded interesting."

"I'll say. If you were a vegetarian. Or an Asian species of cow."

"Ha ha."

Chris shook his head, which Justin felt as his head came in contact with Chris's movements. "J, you can be such a kid. You're like the younger brother I never wanted," he chuckled.

Justin froze, eyes opening wide, and shook himself out of Chris's arms. He rubbed his eyes furiously, noticing a little more moisture than usual.

"What's wrong?" Chris asked, surprised.

"Nothing."

"Seriously."

"Nothing!" Stop it, Chris, he thought frantically. Please just stop.

He didn't want this right now, that tone of voice, that look of concern because it just couldn't be and now all of it was beginning to make sense, JC and the dreams and Chris most of all as he felt his thoughts rush by as fast as sunlight, as tumultuous as a murder of crows and wondered when this was going to stop because it pounded, it seared, it felt like a kick in the teeth and he didn't know how to explain or even say anything to Chris who was looking at him, so confused and worried and trying to find the right thing to say or do but never ever would be able to.

After a few seconds, Chris spoke with worry evident in his voice.

"Let me do something."

THE END


End file.
